Writing instead of insomnia - 2

Plane trips are by definition long and boring.  Of course, you have (sometimes 'award-winning') entertainment systems but at the end of the day there is only so many movies, tv shows, and music you can watch or listen to.

What else is there to do?


Read.  No, not in the mood, besides with the weight restrictions its virtually impossible to bring the sort of books you want to read, and, yes, I'm one of those people who like the tactile feel of a real book, so that's not going to be possible.


Do crosswords.  Yes, that's probably the most interesting for me, at the same time honing my words skills for later writing.


Play games.  No.  I do not play games.  Except maybe for mahjong, but even then my patience is limited.


So what's the next best thing?


Dreaming up another crazy James Bond start where all hell breaks loose.



I was walking past a fast food outlet, minding my own business when an explosion behind me firstly threw me about 20 feet along the sidewalk and then dumped a whole lot of building rubbish on me.



So much for minding my own business.

Dazed, half deaf, and bleeding from several shrapnel wounds, I slowly got to my feet and looked back in the direction of where I thought the explosion happened.


Wrong.  It was in the other direction.  No surprise with the disorientation.


Not far from me I could see several others on the ground through the settling cloud of dust, bodies lying on the pathway, not moving.  A number of cars that had been driving past had got caught almost directly by the blast and had been severely damaged.  Other cars behind had crashed into them.


The storefront I had just past was now just a pile of rubble, much like photos of houses during the blitz and anyone caught in it would not have survived.


Still slightly disorientated, I could hear sirens in the distance, and then, above that, as my hearing slightly improved, screams from people who had taken the full brunt of the explosion. 


I headed towards the nearest of the injured when I was knocked abruptly to the ground by two men running away from the scene.  It took a few moments to realize these men must have had something to do with the explosion and were fleeing.


I scrambled to my feet and started running after them.   They were some distance in front of me as was an oncoming police car, and I  thought they could take up the chase, and stopped.


Instead, it drove straight past the two men and stopped opposite me, and before knew what was happening, I was on the ground with four weapons trained on my head, and three of them yelling that if I moved they would shoot me.


I tried telling them about the two fleeing men I'd been chasing but no one was listening.


I had a knee in my back and a gun to my head.  This wasn't going to end well for someone.




I'm guessing here never get caught running away from an explosion, guilty or not unless you have a patsy.



© Charles Heath 2019

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